Gorre & Daphetid

[jward]

I am seeing an occasional Bachmann Gorre & Daphetid item on ebay. So far I've seen an 0-6-0 and a bobber caboose. Thees appear to be factory painted and not somebody's custom work. Are these the only G&D items Bachmann has made? If there are others, what else is out there? WHen approximately were these produced?

[the Bach-man]

Dear Jeff,
I believe those items were made for the NMRA.
Other items may have been made by other manufacturers.
Have fun!
the Bach-man

[trainman203]

I've always thought that the G&D was somewhat overrated. The scenery was spectacular and the models were detailed, but the track plan as I saw it was not suited to any kind of realistic operation, but a series of loops over itself to get back to the same point more or less.  Real railroads did, of course, employ many variations of loopings to get through mountains, but they always got from point A to point B. 

[jward]

The G&D was very much an operators railroad. It was among the first to have a car routing system, a train schedule run with a fast clock, and working automatic couplers.It was a single track railroad where lesser train had to get "in the hole" to let higher class trains get by. That spectacular scenery provided operating challenges that limited train length to what the locomotive could pull, and every locomotive had a toonage rating. THere was also a home built momentum throttle which used a motor/generator pair to dampen throttle response and simulate the operating characteristics of a heavy train. Each throttle also had a counter meant to simulate water usage of the steam locomotives. Each locomotive had a water capacity assigned to it that was measured by the counter. WHen the counter number approached the water capacity, you had to stop at a water tank to reset the counter. If the number on the counter exceeded the tender capacity, you were out of water and thus steam and had to stop wherever you were until another locomotive could tow you to the nearest tank. The counter was actually a watt meter that measured the locomotive's power consumption, and the trains consumed far more "water" on the upgrade sections than on the downhill runs.

All in all in was a very innovative railroad in many ways that went far beyond the things that show up in the photos. Mr. Allen had a warped sense of humour that was apparent in his photos, and I think many are unwilling to look beyond the caricature aspects of his modelling and see the actuall railroad he was running. The operating scheme is not at all far fetched, and similar to what is common to-day without getting bogged down in the paperwork and drudgery that affects many operating layouts.

The Gorre & Daphetid is also a prime example of thinking vertically instead of horizontally, and he was able to pack more railroading into the space he had than many of the so called experts could do with three times the space. More info on this railroad can be found at: http://gdlines.org/GDLines/Galleries.html

[trainman203]

I thought Whit Towers was doing all of the operations functions in the same period of time. I always liked his layout more, it seemed more believable.  He is nearly forgotten today.

[trainman203]

I've been looking at a G&D track plan for a good 20 minutes now. I don't see a couple of things critical to true Railroad operation.

1. A well defined point A and point B.  The best that I can find is what appears to be two port operations of some kind, and in the middle of the layout an apparent division point that might be his former 4 x 8 layout he started with.  Which leads to the second issue:

2. There are few, if any, line side customer set-outs along the route. Or any readily apparent major, customer like a refinery, or a mine. To me it appears to be a classic spaghetti bowl plan with innumerable twisting untraceable multiple routes that as best I can till all end up back in the same place.

3. You can have fast clocks and use all the car cards you want, but without a logical route from somewhere to somewhere else and customers to provide income, you don't have a believable Railroad.

I'm probably missing a beat somewhere, but if someone can show me point A and point B and show me where the traffic originates and goes,  maybe I can believe this Railroad a little more.  To me, it looks more like an exhibition Railroad with continuous running of many multiple trains, looping all over each other, and going in and out of tunnels to entertain children.

I always liked Whit Towers' Alturas and Lone Pine more because in all his photographs, you could see reasons for that railroad existing... stock pens, oil dealers, warehouses, and so on.  I'm going to find his track plan online somewhere and comment about it later.

[jward]

Lok a little deeper. This is a single track railroad that, when straightened out in schematic form, shows  the very things you accuse it of not having. That port city you referred to  is in fact opposite ends of the railroad, stacked above one another. It was a way to save space, knowing full well that somebody working in the port area was going to be too busy to notice what was going on above and vice versa.The route map and concept are among the many things in the website I linked to. In addition, the book Kalmbach published about 1980 on the G&D describes in great detail the operating scheme of the line. It's a fascinating operation.

Linn Westcott, former editor of Model Railroader in the 60s and 70s, was a good friend of Mr. Allen, as was Whit towers. It is no coincidence that the very things you attribute to Mr. Towers also were being done by Mr. Allen. They influenced each other. Jim FIndley was associated with Mr. Allen, and his TIoga Pass RR is somewhat of a cross between the G&D and the Alturas & Lone Pine (WHit Towers railroad.)

[trainman203]

I don't know, Jeffrey.  I have looked at the G&D track plan till I'm blue in the face.  I just don't see a single track Railroad having a single route between point A and point B.  As hard as I try, I can't figure out what the route is at all, and where it starts and stops. It just seems like a bunch of alternate spinning routes, circling around to be circling around. I haven't found a schematic plan yet with station names on it to show what's next after what. I have seen a couple of set outs here and there, but not enough customers to sustain a real Railroad. It's all route mileage. But what is the route?

If there is a Point A and  Point B on this layout, it looks trains just run over any of a number of alternate routes from one end to the other (if I could figure out where the ends are), shuffle the deck, reassemble, and then run out again back to where they came from. That might be a scenario on some coal road, but I don't think that's what this layout is. Where is the traffic generated? Every road I've ever studied travels on a defined route, and this one just doesn't seem to at all. 

My father took me to see some guy's S Scale attic Mountain extravaganza when I was a kid.  He had tall mountains all over the place and tracks circling all around all of them, with trains spinning and circling everywhere. But not really doing anything except circling and spinning. That's what this reminds me of.

[jward]

OK I think I see where the problem lies. You're thinking about this railroad as if it were some dead end branchline. It does generate significant local traffic, but there is also a large component of bridge traffic involved, as would be expected of a small mainline railroad in the era he is modelling.

FOr the uninitiated, bridge traffic was common during the era of regulation when the ICC set the freight rates. Any railroad or combination of railroads running between point A and point B could haul freight at that set rate. CUstomers could specify whatever routing they wanted for their shipments, and alot of the smaller railroads would beat the larger ones by moving the traffic faster than their competitors. For them it was a matter of survival. Examples of bridge routes are the RIo Grande, Nickle Plate, Wabash, Western Maryland, and the Georgia Railroad group. In the case of the Western Maryland, the one with which I am most familiar, this bridge traffic added four scheduled trains each way in addition to the local freight traffic generated online.

There is a schematic drawing done showing the towns along the line, and their elevation relative to each other. I have copied this from the group files on groups.io, but it is an original concept drawing from John Allen himself.






 

[trainman203]

I'd thought about bridge traffic like the Nickel Plate was famous for but I don't recall John Allen ever defining his layout as such.  But somehow, a Railroad, without online customers, just seems odd to me.  The T&NO had at least eight or nine in my town. Through freights would set out cars and a local switch engine would distribute them at night because of lots of grade crossings and street running.

The MP branch line back home left the old NOT&M main line 50 miles to the north, came south to our hometown, and crossed the T&NO a couple of times. There was a very run-down Interchange track between them west of town, but in all the years I looked at it I only ever saw one box car on that track, and always wondered what was being shipped in it.

To me, coal roads are the ultimate no-online customers along the way, all the trains are solid loads leaving the mines or empties going back, a fairly boring operating scenario in my opinion.  Our MP branchline's major customer was a rock salt mine that shipped at least 50 carloads a day, but there were several dozen other online railroad customers as well.  As well as sugarcane season, which really pumped up that railroad for four or five months.

Thanks for the profile.  That will help.  I'll figure out John's route.

John Allen was a master model builder in all aspects. In the 60s when I was a hot and heavy kid modeler, John Allen was a top hot model railroad property covered in many articles in the magazines all the time.  He did some stunning scratch built stock cars all the way down to nut and bolt castings. And his engines were beautifully detailed and weathered. I never meant any of this to be any criticism of his modeling. He would be an MMR if he were alive today. It's his layout that I never could figure out.

[Piyer]

I forget when John started building the last version of the G&D, but I know it was not finished at the time of his death fifty years ago. I think we are doing the Gorre & Daphetid an injustice by comparing it to today's standards of layout design. From a punny name to a track plan that straddled the eras of spaghetti bowls and walk-around throttles, the G&D Lines was a concept ahead of its time and hampered by it. Who knows how different a layout we would be speaking of if John had lived a couple of decades longer.

Although I got into the hobby in the mid-1980s, I've actually been drawn more to Frank Ellison's Delta Lines. Not, as you might imagine for its point to point schematic, but because I am not a fan of John's mountain climbing scenery. It's too Colorado for this product of Nu Yawk City.   

Lastly, I would argue that John, and Frank, _ARE_ master model railroaders in their own right, regardless of their absence from the NMRA list. A half century plus after their deaths, there are still modelers who are inspired by them. Not many of our fellow hobbyists can / will / would be able to claim the same. 

[Piyer]

I am seeing an occasional Bachmann Gorre & Daphetid item on ebay. So far I've seen an 0-6-0 and a bobber caboose. Thees appear to be factory painted and not somebody's custom work. Are these the only G&D items Bachmann has made? If there are others, what else is out there? WHen approximately were these produced?

JWARD, I can think of the steam switcher, cabooses - short and long, NMRA boxcar, and short and long passenger cars, ore cars, stock car, ventilated boxcar, and a flat car. In addition to the HO models, some have been offered in Z and N scales. There might be an O scale NMRA boxcar, and maybe something in G scale too.

I cannot name the manufacturers, but most date to the 1970s, '80s, or so era. I don't recall if any predated John's death, and I suspect they were a tribute to him and the destruction of his layout (John's house caught fire not long after he died).

[Terry Toenges]

Frank Ellison's Delta Lines. And people complain about a little noise nowadays.

[jward]

.   

Lastly, I would argue that John, and Frank, _ARE_ master model railroaders in their own right, regardless of their absence from the NMRA list. A half century plus after their deaths, there are still modelers who are inspired by them. Not many of our fellow hobbyists can / will / would be able to claim the same. 

I would argue that if a modeller of John Allen's caliber isn't considered a Master Model Railroader, given his unquestionable talent and his being a very active NMRA member, then the title is meaningless. But then again, I am a person who finds the very idea of turning everything into a competition to be tedious and distracting from what should be a relaxing hobby. Railroading is my escape from the rat race.

[Terry Toenges]

What makes a master model railroader? There are probably a bazillion of them out there but the only ones people know about are those who get some sort of publicity. Some folks just do their thing without joining clubs or organizations or entering contests. There are some folks on here who I would call master model railroaders just from seeing the projects they post. I don't know if they have any professional designations or not but their stuff and the work they put into it look really good to me.